Murderous Roots by Virginia Winters

Author:Virginia Winters [Winters, Virginia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780995920804
Publisher: From The River Publishing
Published: 2017-04-22T22:00:00+00:00

Eighty-seven Arthur Street was a dump. Ramshackle was too kind a word for it, with its almost non-existent paint, a yard full of car parts and tires, and a porch barely hanging onto the front wall.

Pete called down the stairs as he came in the front door, "Up here, Adam."

The body hung on the windowsill, at the end of a trail of blood that started inside the door. An exit wound gaped through the hole in a pale blue shirt. The contents had been dumped from a battered dresser, and the door to the closet stood open. The room smelled of blood and dirty clothes.

"Looks like he interrupted someone tossing his room," Pete said.

"Is this the guy you were after?"

"Yeah, Dave Lauder. I knew him. The grey Mazda out in front is registered to him. He renewed the plate when he got out of prison. He was a small-time crook working his way up. Assault with a deadly was the last."

"Who was his lawyer?"

"Don't know. I'll check the court records."

They worked on with the crew they shared with the county for forensics. By the end of the afternoon, they were no further ahead, except for many different fingerprints.

When Adam came into the squad room, Anne met him with a huge grin.

"I found the Culver baby and the descendants."

"Who are they?"

"Your friend, Peg, and her sister, May."

"You're kidding. I never heard they were Culver relations. How did you find out?"

Anne was pleased. Not "are you sure?" but "how did you find out?"

"The Culver baby was a girl, Mary, born at seven months into the parents' marriage in 1917. She had no school record in Culver's Mills. An obituary of the grandmother mentioned a granddaughter, Mary, living in New York City."

"How did you find the obit?"

"The librarian's mother keeps cuttings of obituaries and pastes them into a keepsake book. You know a lot of people in the last generation did the same. My mother keeps hers in a pickle jar."

Anne took a breath and looked poised to continue on the subject of storing obituaries.

"Anne."

"Sorry. Both parents had died of influenza in 1919. I found her marriage to David Jenkins, of New York City in 1937. The trail is cold here in Culvers Mills, but Vital Statistics lists two daughters. Peg married Ian Watson in 1970. May married a man called Peterson in 1964. Neither have children. I don't know how they ended up back in Culver's Mills. "

"You know, the Beauchamps told me their wills were always carefully written. Do you suppose the same is true of the Culvers?"

"This child, Mary, might have inherited something from both sides. I bet Peg Watson doesn't know she's their cousin."

"Can you find out about old wills?"

"They're public record if they haven't been lost or destroyed by fire. Fire took a lot of records in the old days."

"What relation are Peg Watson and Thomas Beauchamp?"

"Second cousins. She's a cousin to the Culvers too."

"I wonder how Leticia's father left his money and land?"

"I suspect a trust fund for a few generations, for the girls.

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